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Five jobs to be created in Wick after £1.7m Shore Seaweed investment


By Gordon Calder

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Peter Elbourne of New Wave Foods. The seaweed is hand-harvested in a sustainable way.
Peter Elbourne of New Wave Foods. The seaweed is hand-harvested in a sustainable way.

FIVE new jobs are to be created in Wick following a £1.7 million investment in seaweed processing company New Wave Foods.

The business, which trades as Shore Seaweed, confirmed it has received £600,000 from the Scottish Investment Bank and a similar sum from private investors. A further £500,000 is to come from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, although it will be "drawn down over a number of years", according to the company.

Peter Elbourne, the firm's managing director (supply and operations), said the main focus of the £1.7m investment will be to get a new range of products into the retail market. At present, its snacks are available in health food shops and online.

The edible-seaweed company, which has its headquarters in Alness, has revamped its bagged-snack range and expanded it with several new flavours as it aims to increase its share of the plant-based, healthier food market.

"This is a major investment for the company and is positive for employment at Wick," Mr Elbourne said. "By this time next year we would hope to have the equivalent of five new full-time jobs there, taking our total number of staff at the site to 11.

"As we scale up production we will need more people in our team at Wick."

The company uses four types of seaweed for its products. The seaweed is hand-harvested in a sustainable way and dried in Caithness, while some orders are despatched from Wick as well.

Mr Elbourne said: "We are in discussions with major retailers and hope to make an announcement about that in a few weeks' time. It is all very positive and will be great to get our product out there.

"The retail outlets have always been our goal. The snacks should be available in Caithness soon."

The company started in 2015 with the Shore brand set up two years later.

"It has been hard doing something this new and has been a bit like swimming against the tide at times – but it has all been really good and it's great to see the products going out to people," he said.

"It is also great to see them being despatched from Wick because that is back to where the seaweed is harvested."

Apart from developing its range of snacks and foodstuffs, the company is also keen to sell the seaweed to other food manufacturers.

"We are selling it all over the UK and in parts of Europe and hope to increase the export of our branded products. We would like to develop that in the next year or two," Mr Elbourne added.

Securing this package is a major milestone and will help propel our business to new heights.

Keith Paterson, joint managing director of Shore, said: "Our mission is to create an edible seaweed industry of scale in Scotland that is 100 per cent sustainable, good for the coastal environment and beneficial for our local communities.

"Our success is based on creating tasty, plant-based seaweed snacks and foods that appeal to the growing number of mainstream, health-conscious consumers, seeking sustainably sourced foods. Securing this package is a major milestone and will help propel our business to new heights."

David Oxley, HIE's director of business growth, said the area has a well-earned reputation for producing high-quality food and drink products. "Seaweed processing presents a new and growing opportunity to expand on this," he said. "Shore has the skills and experience to develop this new industry while creating valuable jobs in some of our most rural communities."


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